Midsummer's Eve

Helena was blushing and the unusual colour in her face made her look quite pretty.

Matthew seemed delighted. His face was shining with virtue; and the thought came into my mind that the proposal was another of his good works. He looked very young and I thought: Is he being very noble? And does he understand what this means?

Helena stood there holding Matthew's hand. There was a look in her eyes which I had noticed in the alcove during the storm. She was like a drowning person clinging to a raft. I felt very uneasy.

My father was saying, "I am going to organize something. We must drink to this engagement.

I'll see what I can get. We'll ask the Captain to join us in half an hour in our cabin.”

We left Helena and Matthew walking the deck and went down to my parents' cabin.

Well, this is a surprise," said my mother.

"It's Matthew performing another of his good deeds, I believe," put in Jacco.

"I feared that," added my mother.

"He is so earnestly good," I said. "He really does want to spend his life helping others.”

"Supplying their needs," mused my father. "What does Helena need most now? A husband.

So Matthew offers himself.”

"And Helena ... what does she think, I wonder," said my mother.

"Helena is so lost and bewildered," I told them, "so frightened that she will cling to anyone who offers help.”

"This is a very special sort of help," said my mother. "Oh dear, I hope it works out well for them.”

"He has the rest of the voyage to think about it," my father reminded us. "Perhaps it was all suggested on the spur of the moment. It may be that by the time they get to Sydney ...”

"Who knows?" I said.

"They'll be able to marry easily in Sydney if they are still in the mind to," my father explained. "There won't be a lot of ceremony. They are so used to girls coming out to be married and so they get through the performance with the utmost speed.”

"She was so worried about the baby," I said. "That's what she is doing it for.”

"I understand that is her reason," put in my mother. "As for him ... I imagine he has rather a simplified picture of life.”

"Most good people have," I replied.

My father looked at me and smiled. "There speaks our wise girl. Now listen to me.

This is their affair. What we think of this hasty marriage is of no account. They have to work it out for themselves. They have to live it. It's up to them.”

"It may well be that it will work out all right," said Jacco. "I should imagine Matthew is just about as easy-going as anyone could be.”

"As long as he can pursue his own virtuous road," said my father. "And Helena knows him up to a point. I know their acquaintance has been brief, but they have met every day, so compared with friendships at home when a friend or lover is seen perhaps once a week, their meetings on this ship are tantamount to months of acntanceship on shore. Let us wish them good luck and hope that aH will be well.”

"There is nothing else we can do," my mother pointed out. "They have made up their minds.”

Helena, I thought, because she needs marriage for her baby and he because he needs to make sacrifices and do good works.

I wondered if they were really the right reasons for a marriage.

The Captain arrived with two bottles of what he said he kept for special occasions.

Mrs. Prevost was tittering with excitement and even Mr. Prevost seemed to have forgotten his absorption with the land for a while. The Captain made a little speech in which he said that it was not the first time romance had come to his ship. There was nothing like ships for romance.

Helena and Matthew stood there accepting the congratulations. Helena still flushed and looking almost happy, or perhaps that was relief; and Matthew had a look about him of such shining pleasure which could only come from the awareness of his virtue.

He was a very good young man and I felt that I loved him for saving Helena from the rough stormy sea and then giving her a chance to escape from a situation which she found so intolerable that she was ready to die to be rid of it.

The days began to speed by. The atmosphere of the ship was changing. We were about to leave that closed world in which we had lived for so many weeks. It had been rather an unreal world, I thought, looking back. Now we were coming into reality.

People changed subtly. The Prevosts were abstracted and in Jim Prevost's eyes there was a look of faint anxiety. He had been so sure on the way out that he was going to find what he wanted. Now he was not so sure. As for his wife, I thought she seemed a little nostalgic, as though she was suddenly realizing all she was losing. After all, it must be a great wrench to go to a new country, a new life. I could understand their feelings.